Today’s Leader’s Lens comes from Himanshu Palsule, the CEO of Cornerstone, a talent experience platform company with over 3,000 employees. Himanshu was actually a podcast guest a few months ago where we explored the 3 aspects of leadership. That episode did so well that I asked him if he would be willing to contribute an article to my newsletter (next week’s article is going to be from Amy Edmondson).
Here is Himanshu
Ambiguity can be unsettling and uncertain, but it can also be rewarding.
I remember the day I left behind my established corporate job in Bombay to move to San Francisco to join a startup. That feeling of adventure mixed with trepidation. Equal parts eager and terrified. That ambiguity, as I boarded my long flight on December 31, 1989, with $150 in travel allowance and an address in Walnut Creek, California, where my wife and I were on assignment, has played a big role in my career choices. It has also made for those great fireside immigrant stories that my children have long tired of – how we made it to the US with two bags and a couple hundred bucks driven by an unseen force of ambition and adventure.
To me, ambiguity is that feeling you get when you aren’t sure where the path ahead of you leads but you still feel a strong tug. It’s an uncertain step into the dark and a force that draws you to keep seeking. You’re never 100% sure what will happen, and you go forward anyway because you know that confronting ambiguity is the best way to grow.
Throughout my career as a leader, I’ve found that you can’t force someone to take that step into the dark. Instead, you have to create a safe, supportive environment that fosters confidence so your people feel empowered taking those steps on their own into the unknown. It’s my job to lead through ambiguity and mitigate the fear it can cause my people. As the CEO of Cornerstone, I work to shift how people feel about the ambiguity of the future from scary to exciting by building paths forward every day. And I wanted to share with you some personal journeys that will hopefully motivate you to support your people when they face ambiguous situations.
A journey of adaptation
Leading through ambiguity, for me, is about navigating uncharted territories with a blend of available data-driven analysis and instinctual decision-making.
When I left behind the familiarity of my job in India and ventured into the dynamic world of the ’90s San Francisco startup scene, the transition was not without its challenges. It was a different world back then, where the forces of globalization flattening the world and making it more homogenous were in their nascency. My wife and I were assigned projects in big towns and small towns in America, which in itself created a sense of ambiguity to my own identity. I remember the day during the Iraq war in a small town in Colorado where our project manager walked up to us and hoped our families were safe in India since — to her — it was part of Iraq. We learned the joys of happy hours, took to the other football right away (I’m still a diehard 49er fan), and appreciated the grit and determination of the American people and their outlook on life. And to my wife and I, it soon started to feel right. We started realizing that this could be our forever home, which was a huge step given the comforts of a more predictable life we had left behind.
To be a leader when you aren’t sure what the future looks like requires continuous and collective adaptation and learning. Look at what happened in March 2020, when entire workforces had to leave their offices to work remotely for what we thought would be a couple of weeks to slow the curve of the pandemic. Many of them, even today, have not returned. Being a leader, you have to draw upon your history and the diverse perspectives and experiences of the people around you to inform your decisions. But still, as a leader, it’s always on you to make the choices. It gets lonely quickly making decisions during ambiguous times.
Ambiguity is just a learning opportunity in disguise
My time in San Francisco was at the peak of the early ’90s tech boom, and I was eager to join the digital gold rush during immense growth and discovery. But it wasn’t easy because thriving amidst uncertainty takes work. I learned that outstanding leadership balances available information and gut instincts while remaining acutely aware of the situational context. And it helped shape how I lead through ambiguity today and how I want my leadership team to lead, too.
That was just the first of my many moves throughout the US. Each new environment brought its own challenges, from the dynamism of Silicon Valley to the chill of Minnesota winters balanced by the warmth of the Midwest culture, and the “federal world” of Washington DC to navigating LA traffic (I’m still not sure which one is easier to handle). Along the way, I navigated personal milestones, like starting a family while completing a Master’s degree, and learned that adaptation isn’t just about you, but it affects the people you care about, too. And, through it all, I embraced ambiguity as a catalyst for growth, trusting my instincts and learning from every experience and everyone around me.
Get access to the full article by becoming a premium subscriber on Substack where each week you will get these types of articles delivered to your inbox along with other content.
Comments